Fight to save heart of park
Many in Arthur’s Pass want the national park visitor centre, and important archives stored inside, to be saved. Amber Allott reports.
A small mountain village is fighting to save the jewel at the heart of both their town and the South Island’s first national park, which they say has been locked up and left.
The Arthur’s Pass National Park visitor centre opened in 1959, designed by Christchurch architect Paul Pascoe and partially built by a local tramping club.
Now its future is uncertain after being deemed earthquake-prone and closed to the public in 2019, with a smaller, temporary centre set up across the street.
Many in the community want it, and more than a century’s worth of important archives stored inside, to be saved, and say the Department of Conservation (DOC) has been dragging its feet on making a concrete plan for the site.
Motelier Peter Neale said the building was well-loved, and locals were told by DOC the cost to repair and strengthen it would be about $3 million, much less than a new building.
The centre was ‘‘a real focal point’’ for visitors passing through, he said.
‘‘I think it was the third most visited [national park centre] in the country preCovid, behind Aoraki and Punakaiki.’’
Adults and children alike enjoyed the displays, which featured a model showing the terrain of the park, Richard Seddon’s stagecoach, and displays on everything from history and weather, to birds and pounamu, he said.
It had a lot of significance to villagers too, Neale said. ‘‘As a community, it was a place for people to meet. The new visitor centre is too small.’’
There was also a hundred years of archives stored inside, which included historical correspondence, maps, displays, written records, photographs, even hut books and paintings.
Local volunteers had been working to digitise the collection, and two weeks ago, they said DOC staff agreed to let them have access to a lean-to-like extension at the back of the building until November to finish.
But last week they said the rug was ripped out from under them, and they were told they could no longer access the building – or the archives – at all.
Senior DOC ranger of 12 years Chris Stewart was one of them, and said the records were ‘‘the whole history of the Arthur’s Pass National Park’’.
The local climate meant material stored in buildings deteriorated quickly and, if they were not saved soon, they would be lost, he said.
‘‘It’d be a disaster. That stuff in there is so important, not only for Arthur’s Pass, but for the whole DOC national park system.’’
While the men said they had had no issues with local staff, getting a clear answer from DOC leadership had been an exercise in futility.
‘‘[The centre] has been called the hub of the park, and this was the first national park in the South Island,’’ Neale said.
‘‘It’s a key visitor point, and a lot of DOC’s work is co-ordinated through it.
‘‘We all accept there are bigger problems for DOC, but the community wants to work with them on this.’’
DOC’s North Canterbury operations manager, Kingsley Timpson, said they were reviewing options for the visitor centre, and would keep locals in the loop.
Staff had been working with community members to preserve important items in the old building, including heritage ski and climbing equipment significant to the area, he said.
‘‘We provided limited access for community members and DOC staff to move these heritage items into one part of the building which is deemed most stable, though it is still earthquakeprone.’’
The items needed to be stored appropriately to make sure they would not degrade or get damaged, Timpson said.
‘‘Some members of the community were hoping to continue accessing the building to catalogue these items. Given the site’s earthquake risks, DOC is not able to allow access for this additional work to happen on site.
‘‘However, we are looking at other options, such as allowing people to go in briefly to take out some of these items and catalogue them somewhere else.
‘‘We want to find a solution to this situation that works for everyone, and are working together with the community to find a new local site for these important heritage pieces to be stored that is safe for people to access.’’